Financial institutions and/or other organizations typically issue consumers or businesses with access “devices”, such as credit cards or debit cards. Authorized users of such access devices can then make purchases and/or obtain financial instruments, e.g. such as at a point of sale, through an ATM, through an internet site, or at another remote location.
Misuse of access devices for fraudulent purposes has materially negative consequences for users of the devices, for the issuers of the devices, and for any other entity that can be negatively impacted by either actual or perceived security risks. Users are often negatively effected by identify fraud, loss of access to funds, and/or inconvenience. As well, providers of such access devices lose millions of dollars annually to fraudulent device use.
In an attempt to control misuse, issuers of access devices and related institutions have created numerous processes, materials and techniques to reduce the risks referenced. Such efforts include consumer education and sophisticated authorization systems.
Authorization systems involve the combined efforts of various organizations in the value chain, such as merchants or entities that accept the device or access methods, issuers who provide accounts and access devices or access methods to consumers and business users, and associations such as MASTERCARD®, AMERICAN EXPRESS®, VISA® and DISCOVER®, that provide rules and guidelines for managing the card payment environment.
In a typical example, a user applies for and is issued a credit or check card, wherein a credit card accesses a line of credit, while a check card accesses the consumer's available funds. To use the device, the user presents the device and/or account access Is information (account number, CVV number, verification information, etc.) to a merchant to purchase goods, services or funds, such as through a physical, i.e. brick and mortar, store, via telephone, or through an Internet site.
Before providing the goods, services or funds, the merchant first authorizes the transaction either through a terminal or other means. In the authorization process, the merchant must follow certain guidelines including providing information from the presenter of the device. If the authorization is approved, the merchant provides the goods, services or funds.
If at a later time it is determined that the receiver of the goods, services or funds was a “fraudster”, the system has been defrauded with various negative consequences such as: the access device can be shut down, the consumer may be materially inconvenienced and/or suffer financial loss, the provider of the device or the merchant suffer financial loss, and/or confidence in the payments system is negatively impacted.
Some financial companies have started barring all credit and/or debit transactions originating from nations that exhibit high levels of fraud. For example, as reported in “Blocking Entire Nations to Curtail Card Fraud”, by David Breitkopf, American Banker, Jan. 30, 2006, “One of the more extreme examples: First Bank and Trust Co. of Abingdon, Va., which issues Visa debit cards, does not accept transactions originating anywhere outside the United States unless a customer asks for permission to use their cards abroad.”
Almost all, if not all issuers of these devices set parameters that will result in a declined authorization under certain circumstances, such as but not limited to a number of transactions that exceeds some threshold, or a pattern of transactions that results in a score below a threshold. A key problem is that this approach leads to “false positives”, in that transactions that should or could have been approved are declined, and sometimes approves transactions that turn out to be fraudulent. A transaction that exceeds a credit line is typically treated as a factual factor, which results in either a yes or no decision, but does not lead to a false positive.
Current systems do include a variety of customer control features such as:                being required to contact the device issuer to activate their account or access device;        being required to use a PIN or personal identification number in some cases; and/or        as noted above, in some cases being required to call and request to turn access on, such as if the user plans to use the card internationally.        
It would be advantageous to provide a system, structure and method such that access devices and their use may provide increased security, for users and for financial institutions, as compared to security infrastructures that are currently available. The development of an enhanced customer account system and associated method would constitute a major technological advance.
As well, it would be advantageous to provide a system, structure and method wherein an account holder may be further involved with defining where and how their credit cards and/or debit cards are used. The development of such a transaction system would constitute a further major technological advance.
In addition, it would be advantageous to provide a system, structure and method wherein an account holder and other appropriate parties within the network who have a need to know may be notified if and when there is an attempt to access the account holder's credit card and/or debit card account in a manner that is counter to parameters for account access that have been set by the account holder. This would allow the account holders and/or other appropriate parties to take preemptive action to thwart the intentions of fraudsters, not only for the account holder in which fraudulent access has been attempted, but also potentially for others based upon gained information. The development of such a transaction system and process would constitute an additional technological advance.